Le Bruit de la Chute 1975

Pierre Alechinsky made this painting, "Le Bruit de la Chute," with juicy colors and sweeping gestures. Imagine the studio, the smell of oil paint, the brush dancing across the surface. I can imagine him thinking, "How can I make this less literal?" as he paints. He probably asked himself, "How do I get this feeling of falling, this sense of something slipping away?" Look at that chartreuse sweep of paint on the left – it’s like a slide, or a spill, or a shudder. Then there's that little drawing of faces, floating amidst the chaos of the painting, as if to say, “Help!” Down below, he uses these dark graphic marks to suggest the weight and power of the waterfall as it crashes downwards. He's speaking to the tradition of landscape painting here and the need to push against it. Painting is a conversation through time, you know, and we painters, we’re always talking to each other, riffing off each other’s ideas.